Madonna’s Twist

Oliver’s pillow was smoothed by gentle hands that night; and loveliness and virtue watched him as he slept – Oliver Twist by Charles Dickens

IT’S the Dickensian story of the Jew, the orphan and the trip to London Town as Madonna and David Banda fly to London.

“GOT HIM,” says the Mirror’s front page, the words hanging in black ink over a picture of one of the singer’s staff, her PA Siobhan, spiriting the one-year-old Malawi boy to London.

“Fury as Madonna brings her baby David to London,” says the Mirror elsewhere on its front page. “Madonna’s adopted baby is whisked out of Malawi on private jet.”

It’s all so very cloak and dagger. The language suggests that what we are watching is less a woman choosing to give a motherless boy from an impoverished country a new life of splendour and rare opportunity than a kidnap.

“Madonna’s baby is bundled on plane before court fights,” the paper continues. There is another photo, a suitably grainy image of a “Madonna aide”, a kind of Nancy to Madge’s Fagin, carrying David through Johannesburg airport as they head for London.

“Madge Grabs Baby,” says the Star’s headline. And the Mail is appalled. “Cash for babies fury as Madonna flies little David back to Britain in defiance of legal challenge,” says the paper’s front page.

Poor “little” David. He’s been plucked from his homeland like a silk hanky from a rich man’s pocket.

Emmie Chanika, executive director of Civil Liberties Committee, is “very angry”. “There are many people who want to adopt and they go through the proper procedure however long it takes,” says she.

The Express talks of “worldwide condemnation” for Madonna. “Legal challenges” are being drawn up in Malawi to bring baby David back.

But it is too late. The courts in Malawi have granted Madonna and her husband, Guy Ritchie, an interim adoption grant that gives them custody of David for 18 months. During this time, their suitability to care for David will be assessed.

David’s father Yohane tells the Mail he is “ecstatic”. “I appeal to the self-styled lovers of David to leave my baby alone,” he says. “Where were they when David didn’t have milk when his mother died? Do they want him to go back to the orphanage.”

So David is on his way to London. Where he will get more than he can ever dream of…